credits for live musicians thus far: mettaben, TigerLilly, Señor Sensi, K. Jax, scottsdale pakalolo dogmeier

arrangements for ukulele: mettaben

credits for known song writers: Sue Rainbow, imani, joshua, kelly, Dieidre Pulgram Arthen, Amara Karuna, Ragani, many others, sorry, help me out here... (originals marked with *)

Update: 2011/01/02:

Lyrics and other information about these tracks:

http://www.archive.org/download/MettabensRainbowChantCollection/RainbowKirtan.pdf

You might also be interested in my SoundCloud.com page, which features more of my latest work: http://soundcloud.com/mettaben

Update: 2010/01/01:

The philosophy of sharing is very important to me. This is one of the reasons why I make these recordings available. Music is fun in and of itself, and I would do it even I didn't have the ability to share. However, in my reverie I try to be mindful that there are those who could enjoy and benefit from this music, just as I have enjoyed and benefited from the recordings of music that have become available to me. So I take some time out every now and then, to hit the record button and try to capture at least a snippet, on the spot, with admittedly mixed results. This is sort of turning out to be my online song book, so it is useful even to myself as I go back over what I did way back in the oh's, or the two thousands, or whatever. Happy new year!

This is a collection of versions of various songs I've either heard at rainbow gatherings, or I think would be appropriate for rainbow gatherings. Many would also fit right in at alchemical fire circles such as Fire Tribe (FireTribeHawaii.org), or at pagan gatherings, kirtan gatherings, folk festivals, etc. And these also make great family jams to entertain and spiritually and musically inspire kids and adults alike.

This music is not for passive consumption, nor practice, nor performance, but rather simply for playing, jamming, improvising, enjoying. And it just may seep deeper into your consciousness. I trust and have faith in the power of sacred sound in the way that some people trust and have faith in other spiritual powers and concepts-- ancient trees, the full moon, Divinity in any of its myriad and sundry forms. But don't take it too seriously, I enjoy rousing silly songs too! :-)

It is with great reluctance that I make this collection of rainbow chants public-- in no small part because I am grateful for and humbled by the original song writers, some known, some unknown, and I doubt that I would be able to give them adequate credit for the melodies and lyrics they have invented. My intention is to focus credit where credit is due, so if you know the author of a song, let me know and I will post the attribution.

My other reluctance in releasing these recordings is simply the recognition of my limited ability as a musician. In rhythm, tone, and lyrics, I make many mistakes. I hope that others take these recordings not as an end point, but rather as inspiration, to remix as you will, and share with others, v0.1 open source stylee.

My motivation for sharing these outweighs my reluctance. I want these song memes to thrive in the wild. I am deeply saddened by the fact that many old timer rainbow musicians give up sharing music before they have given an opportunity for a core number of disciples to learn from them. I see old songbooks, but without the melody, without recordings, without a written score, they are merely sad, empty lyrics. So many beautiful songs have been lost in the rainbow family already. Please, if you know anybody who knows some of the old rainbow songs, the ones sung in the early days of the gatherings, especially the 70's and 80's, please tell them to share-- on archive.net if they are able, or at least encourage them to teach members of the next generation. Let's not let even one single other worthy song die-- even your own recordings are not safe, tapes disintegrate, optical media rots, hard drives crash. To counter this entropy, I trust archive.org: they seem to be in the archival business for the long haul. Thanks and praise.

I've got an uke, a croaky voice, a bad laptop mic, beautiful friends and family, and a bit of inspiration to try to get this virtual circle of music going.

Part of my vision is to create a "Virtual Rainbow Gathering" where we can swap songs, and record new versions on top of the older versions, adding our own voice or instrumentation, and keep re-uploading these modified versions. In the end perhaps we'll get a sweet collection of rainbow chants almost as good as if we had recorded them live around a crackling fire under the full moon at a rainbow gathering deep in the jungle somewhere. Because I don't know about you, I don't get out to gatherings very much anymore, but I still feel the itch to co-create music.

Just download an open source audio editor, such as audacity, record your songs, layers, and loops, and upload back to archive.org. Then leave a comment/"review" with a link. I'd love to have a better website to use as a tool for this sharing process, has anybody used splicemusic.com before? It seems like a good idea, but I'm having trouble getting the looping to work the way I want it too. Hmm.

Check back here every so often, I occasionally add new songs as I find the time.

Come say aloha groups.yahoo.com/group/oahurainbow, hawaiirainbow.tribe.net
and groups.yahoo.com/group/firetribediscussion

If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy:
http://www.archive.org/details/SacredDevotionalMusic


This audio is part of the collection: Community Audio
It also belongs to collection:

Artist/Composer: mettaben
Keywords: conscious music, rainbow gathering; rainbow family; sacred chant; english chant; spiritual chant; pagan chant; earth chant; fire chant; rainbow chant; rainbow family chant; rainbow gathering chant; english chant; rainbow heartsong; roots music; acoustic; folk; family jam; kirtan; bhajan

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States

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